Truce intact despite death on Gaza border

THE ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is holding despite a fatal shooting on the border.

In a letter to the UN Security Council on Friday, Palestinian UN observer Riyad Mansour called the situation in Gaza "extremely fragile" and accused Israel of ceasefire violations.

Hundreds of Palestinians approached the border fence on Friday at several locations in southern Gaza, testing expectations Israel would no longer enforce a 300-metre-wide no-go zone on the Palestinian side of the fence meant to prevent infiltrations into Israel.

Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said a man was killed and 19 people were wounded by Israeli fire near the border.

Mansour, the Palestinian UN observer, said Israeli forces fatally shot Anwar Abdulhadi Qudaih in the head in a border area east of Khan Younis.

Hamas security tried to defuse the situation and keep the crowds away from the fence.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official at the ongoing negotiations in Cairo, told The Associated Press the violence would not affect the ceasefire.

In one incident witnessed by Associated Press, several dozen Palestinians, most of them young men, approached the fence, coming close to a group of Israeli soldiers standing on the other side.

Some Palestinians briefly talked to the soldiers, while others appeared to be taunting them with chants of "God is Great" and "Morsi, Morsi," in praise of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, whose mediation led to the truce.

At one point, a soldier shouted in Hebrew: "Go there, before I shoot you," and pointed away from the fence, toward Gaza.

The soldier then dropped to one knee, assuming a firing position. Eventually, a burst of automatic fire was heard, but it was not clear whether any of the casualties were from this incident.

The crowds were mainly made up of young men but also included farmers hoping to once again farm lands in the buffer zone. Speaking by phone from the buffer zone, 19-year-old Ali Abu Taimah said he and his father were checking family land that had been fallow for several years.

"When we go to our land, we are telling the occupation (Israel) that we are not afraid at all," he said.

Israel's military said roughly 300 Palestinians approached the security fence at different points, tried to damage it and cross into Israel. Soldiers fired warning shots in the air, but after the Palestinians refused to move back, troops fired at their legs, the military said. A Palestinian infiltrated into Israel during the unrest, but was returned to Gaza, it said.

In Cairo, Egypt is hosting separate talks with Israeli and Hamas envoys on the next phase of the ceasefire - a new border deal for blockaded Gaza. Hamas demands an end to border restrictions, while Israel insists Hamas halt weapons smuggling to Gaza.

Mansour also accused Israel of intensifying its use of "excessive and lethal force" against civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in recent days and of arresting at least 230 civilians since the Gaza fighting began, including several members of the Palestinian Legislative Council who were detained at dawn on Friday.

A poll on Friday showed about half of Israelis think their government should have continued its Gaza offensive.

The independent Maagar Mohot poll showed 49 per cent of respondents felt Israel should have kept pursuing squads that fire rockets into Israel, 31 per cent supported the decision to stop and 20 per cent had no opinion. Twenty-nine per cent thought Israel should have sent ground troops into Gaza. The poll of 503 respondents had an error margin of 4.5 per cent.

The same survey showed Netanyahu's Likud Party and electoral partner Israel Beiteinu losing some support, but his hardline bloc was still favoured to form the next government after elections in January.